


My Strength Is In You

by plumeriapixie



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eremin - Freeform, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm so sorry, M/M, actually not an accident, i didn't mean to hurt them, i planned it that way, slightlyolder!armin, slightlyolder!eren, starts in armin's pov and switches to eren's, this just came to me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-15 01:57:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5766973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumeriapixie/pseuds/plumeriapixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We were so young when we first met - little angels who didn't know any better. When I look at you now, I can't help but wonder how we ever were that way. Pure, innocent. It's as if someone flipped a switch at some point in time, and we grew up instantly. Whether that switch was flipped when your mom passed, or my parents or grandfather, or at some point later on, I don't know.<br/>The world around us is crumbling. Between the Titans and the conspirators, it won't last much longer. Deep down, I think you know this too.  This is why I've found myself at your bedside tonight, looking down at you with an aching heart and an anxious mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Strength Is In You

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I've written in a while, so I hope it doesn't seem to choppy. I admire people who have a knack for detailed narrative, so I thought I'd give it a shot with something that features very little dialogue. I have to get back into the swing of writing. This little story was sort of intended to break your heart, so if you read it, please don't hurt me.

_Eren_ , Armin thought, with no intention to wake his sleeping friend _. I need you_. The words weren't thought in lust. Armin felt tears slide down his cheeks, tears he'd never felt rising.

Their time was limited. The plans for Wall Maria had gone to hell, and now they were in hiding. Again. Armin was a lot of great things, but optimistic had never been one of them. He was faithful at least - in God, mostly. He had to be. It was his only defense against losing his mind these days.

But at the end of the day, he was a pragmatist. He knew the odds weren't at all in favor of humanity, much less the Survey Corps. And though he wondered some nights why it all had to happen, he knew in the end that it was their fault. The humans. They did this, Armin finally admitted to himself with a pang of despair in his heart. At the end of the day, the enemy was the human race, his race, himself.

He clutched the thin fabric of his shirt, loose over his scrawny chest, as the tears continued falling silently. He had come here to find comfort in Eren. He needed Eren's words of encouragement, of commitment and drive. He needed Eren to fill him with the passion and will that he so effortlessly filled Armin with every time he spoke. He just needed Eren's words.

As if sensing his best friend's anxiety, Eren blinked his emerald eyes open and let them drift up Armin's body in front of him to rest on the purest blue eyes in the world - pure in their color, in their faith, and despite everything, their naivety.

"Armin," he whispered, more of an acknowledgment than anything.

When he noticed the blonde's tears, he scooted back on the bed, lifting the blankets as an invitation in.

Armin took it without hesitation, sliding in next to Eren and burying his face in the brunet's shoulder. He was trembling profusely, but he wasn't crying now. He had only needed Eren. He was okay now. If only he could hear those words.

"I'm here," Eren whispered, burying his face in dirty blonde locks as his fingers came to rest in them. "It's okay. Everything is okay."

This had been their life. Armin needed Eren. He always had and always would. He was broken. It started when his parents left him at the age of six. Though Armin had never uttered a word of distaste about them, Eren knew that he'd always felt abandoned. His parents had left him, their tiny, fragile child who was the subject of interest to all the local bullies in Shiganshina. They had chosen adventure and curiosity over him. He needed Eren to make him feel loved, to make him feel worthy of the life God so graciously bestowed on a weakling like him.

But Eren needed Armin too. He had failed. He had failed his mother. She'd needed him to save her, and he couldn't. He was unable, and he would never forgive himself for that. He had been able to save Mikasa all those years ago in the mountains, able to save Armin in Trost, but he had failed her. Nothing would ever make up for it. And he couldn't bear the thought of it happening again.

That was why he had to protect Armin. The boy had a love for him, an attachment to him that Eren knew he didn't deserve. What had he ever done to deserve it? Sure, Mikasa loved him too, but her first experience with Eren had been him saving her life. Her love for him was to be expected. Armin, on the other hand-

Eren was brought back to the present as Armin shifted at his side, lowering his small frame until he was lying on his back, looking up at Eren.

Eren smiled. Armin would always need him. He would always try his hardest to be physically strong, but he would always fail. Of course, Eren would never say this out loud, but everyone knew it. Even Armin had to know it on some level. But that mind of his - that terrifyingly cunning mind would remain sharp, or so Eren hoped. Armin's head injury in their most recent mission had cost him a lot more than what was visible to the naked eye.

Eren found himself running his fingers through the blonde strands that were entirely too silky for the circumstances they endured every day. He found himself feeling the scars on the back of Armin's head from the wounds so deep and life threatening that Hanji had been forced to drop everything and sew them up right there on the battlefield with Armin wide awake and delirious. If only all of his wounds had been so easily fixed.

Armin closed his eyes and leaned into the touch, allowing his cheek to rest in Eren's palm.

The brunet smiled. His once bright eyes had darkened significantly over the past few months. Stress had aged him in the most beautiful of ways. His once bright eyes were now a darker emerald green than before. His body remained strong, but how could it not under the circumstances? His calloused hands stroked over Armin's cheek, round and youthful as ever, and a sharp pain made its home in chest as a thought occurred to him. What would he do when Armin wasn't here anymore?

Before he could stop it, a tear of anguish slipped from his eye instantly at the very idea and fell to Armin's cheek.

The blonde's eyes snapped open and he stared up at the distraught brunet hovering above him. His blue eyes filled with worry, but Eren quickly forced a smile. Armin needed him. He would be strong for Armin. Always.

It was now that he noticed Armin's eyes weren't quite the same blue they had been before either. Though still vibrant and beautiful, they were... deeper somehow, filled with pain, even as he reflected Eren's smile and placed a gentle hand to the brunet's tear stained cheek.

Losing the Commander had been hard on everyone, but particularly Armin and Levi. Armin had grown close to Erwin, looked up to him and admired him for his commitment to humanity. That was before the Commander had died. Before the duties he'd left behind had been forced on Armin, and before the little blonde had labeled himself a monster, with the blood of too many humans on his hands for anyone to argue.

But Eren knew better. Armin wasn't a monster. He couldn't be one if he tried. He was too pure, too naive, too precious. These were the words Eren whispered into Armin's cheek, praying the movements of his lips on Armin's skin would send the message for him. It usually did.

He so desperately wanted to tell Armin this and so much more, but as his lips lingered there, he decided on just a few more words before they would go to sleep.

"I know you can't hear me," he whispered, eyes closed and lips pressed lightly against Armin's cheek. "But I love you. So, so much. I'll always be here, I promise. As long as you're alive, I'll stay alive. I'll fight as long as I still have my reason, for as long as I still have you."

He opened his eyes when he was done, but noticed that Armin's eyes were closed now, probably trying to figure out everything Eren had said. After a moment, his face visibly relaxed as he turned his head to mouth his response into Eren's cheek, the words Armin could no longer speak after the damages to the nerves in his chest, throat and ears.

_I love you too._

Eren felt the words on Armin's lips and tongue pressed against him, and it was all he needed. For the first time in his life, he locked his fingers into those blond strands, tilted Armin's head back and connected their lips with every ounce of passion he'd once channeled into the slaying of Titans.

Armin's eyes were wide when Eren opened his to look. He smiled at the blonde's surprised reaction. Armin had yet to kiss back, but Eren knew better than to worry. Armin loved him. He was absolutely certain of it.

Not that he needed confirmation, but he couldn't help the giddy-despite-the-circumstances feeling that spread through his chest when Armin began to move his lips against Eren's, reaching up to tangle his thin fingers in long, thick brown locks.

In that moment Eren saw a bit of brightness return to Armin's eyes, and he set a new goal. He would bring back that brightness. He would work at it nonstop until Armin was smiling continuously everyday like he did when they were children. Before the Titans played a direct role in their everyday lives, before the bullies, and before they were orphans. That was his goal now. He would kill any Titan that stood in his way of course. He would slay them one by one, but with a different purpose now. Not for revenge, but for peace. Not for his mother who he knew forgave him, but for Armin, who needed him now. He would take on the world, the Titans, the cultists, and the conspirators, but he wouldn't die anytime soon, and neither would Armin. With his renewed hope, that, he was sure of.

He pulled away to look down at the angelic face before him. "I'll protect you," he said, more to himself than to Armin, but the genuine smile that spread across the blonde's face, elicited a warm feeling throughout his chest.

Armin needed him. That was enough of a reason to keep going. So he would go. He would take Armin beyond the walls, to the ocean, and then further, until the day they reached home.

**Author's Note:**

> I changed my mind. Please hurt me.


End file.
